It seems that the Police have decided to uphold the male prerogative and limit the number of women in the Force. Not only that, but they have the support of their Cabinet Minister, the Hon. J. Irving Pearman, and have already solicited the approval of the Human Rights Commission. The Minister is quoted as using as his reason for rejecting women that old sop to male ego, "the size and strength of women''.

There are jobs available in the Police Force right now but there is a temporary block on women recruits and the Police are actively looking for big strong men to join the Force even though they can now be older, smaller and weaker than they used to be.

It appears that there have been talks between Government and the Police and Government has agreed to freezing the number of women recruits. We would bet there was not one woman involved in that decision.

Mr. Pearman, the Minister, said, "Let's be honest, sometimes Police officers have to deal with very difficult circumstances, and it can come down to a question of size and strength.'' True, the Police do often deal with some tough situations but then so do most women in the normal course of their daily lives. In terms of the everyday working of the Police Force, the excuse of size and strength would seem to us to be more of an excuse than a reality. It is also fair to wonder how many times in the course of a week, a month, or a career that a policeman actually faces any kind of physical difficulty and how many times that difficulty could be avoided. Let's be honest, Mr. Pearman, the world is roughly half male and half female. What makes anyone think Bermuda's Police Force should be only 15 percent women? We agree entirely that the Police Force has, as the Minister is reported as saying, "to keep a reasonable balance between the number of men and women''.

Our complaint is that the "balance'' is not balanced at all and 15 percent is no "balance''. The figures are confusing but it would seem that the number of women is now frozen at 64 and the regular complement of the force was 489 but the Force is under strength.

Where size and strength are concerned it seems to us that there are some guys out there who are not that big. It's traditional in the Force to work toward a male glamour factor in terms of the wearing of the uniform but many policemen these days seldom, if ever, wear a uniform. Then too it doesn't seem to us to take a big, strong male to operate a radar gun or to write a speeding ticket or to do station duty. The point is that the need for a large number of big strong men appears to be a myth and a myth perpetrated by men..."the stronger sex''.

We can almost hear it now, all the men at the top of the Police Force sitting around at lunch time in the officers only mess saying in unison, "No more women, they're taking over.''